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Movie Review: Vagabond (1985)

Woman on the Road


Movie: Vagabond

Dir: Agnès Varda

   Brimming with humanity, Vagabond tells the bum-like life of a vagrant girl called Mona. With unflinching resilience and courage to lead on with her life of independence and cool-headedness, she accompanies people she meets along the way, only to split with them after a while.

   The movie begins with someone  finding Mona in a gutter, lying all frozen and stained with the purple of wine dreg. What ensues is a peep into her life before the incident, starting with her arrival into that place from a beach. We get to know Mona through flashbacks emanating from the confessions of the people whom she met along the road. All of them remembers her clearly, as she is that girl which either someone's mother doesn’t want her daughter to become or was a pain in the ass for another person who offered her help.

   Agnès Varda, who made the brilliant Cleo from 5 to 7 that showed the life of a lady who roams the streets of France as she awaited the results of her biopsy test in a few hours, is one among the few women auteurs of Cinema that I know of. While she dwelled on the grounds of existentialism in Cleo, Vagabond has more of an air of feminism in it, by which she is trying to paint the obvious picture of women being treated with a certain kind of difference, that prevents them from being completely free. 

   The film also discusses about the loneliness one has to face if she chooses a path of freedom and independence. At one point of the movie a guy who tries to act as an aid for Mona tells her: “If one chooses the road of complete freedom, chances are high that they would have to be completely lonely.” He also tells her that he chose otherwise,and that’s how he’s now settled down with his family and farmhouse to care for.

   Vagabond might end up disgusting the privileged lot of people, as Mona doesn’t comply by any of the norms destined on her. She just hits the road, hitchhikes (often getting rejected for her tattered looks), donates blood to eat some bread and wanders about smoking pot, with an occasional peep into a book of her interest...before getting kicked out and throwing her arms out for another ride.👍

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